It’s that time of the year again. People are getting all sentimental, start reflecting about their life and what they did or didn’t do the last 12 months. I guess I’m no different, seeing that I’m about to spend an entire paragraph ranting about the group’s status. You have been warned!

What can I say, 2005 has been a surprisingly eventful year for Kotonoha (at least compared to our first one): we gained a couple of new members, got our own website (the dream of every scanlator!), launched a few interesting projects, finished some too. We might be slow, but we get things done, which is all what counts in the end, I suppose. However, Kotonoha wouldn’t be Kotonoha if we only rest on our laurels (let’s just presume we have some). While I personally have no complaints about how things are now, I’m confident that Kotonoha is capable of much more, and we’ve got another 12 months to prove that. In fact, I think 2006 might become our most important year yet. It’s the year in which it will be decided if Kotonoha can be considered a success or if it’s just another doomed experiment, if we can take off or if we’ll crash and burn a miserable death like so many small groups before us. In this spirit, let us together turn to the great tasks before us.

But enough with this pretentious crap, let’s get to what we all are really here for. No, not coke and tarts, I mean manga. Today sees the launch of yet another new project: The Hour of the Mice by Kei Tôme. Although I had been following this series ever since it started serialization in 2004, I didn’t seriously consider it as a potential project until I worked on Fuguruma Memories. From all Tôme’s current series, this one admittedly has the biggest potential. The story’s premise might sound straightforward and unspectacular at first, but it actually leaves a lot of room for plot twists and interesting character development. Knowing Tôme, I’m pretty sure she’ll leave none of it unused. My special thanks to David and darkfibre who helped checking the translation and thus made sure I didn’t f**k up anything.

The other releases include the first two chapters of Milk Closet’s final volume and a new chapter of both Girlfriend and Uncivilized Planet.

Finally, thanks to ebifry who volunteered to translate this 1-shot for us, we can present you The Monkey’s Foot, an amusing story with some freaky black humor. It’s our first short story that comes from the now discontinued Young You magazine. Hopefully, it will appeal to our female readership. (Here’s the HTTP link for those who don’t want to use Bittorrent)

To conclude this tiring update, I’d like to thank all our staff members and readers for their hard work and support respectively. Of course, my biggest thank goes to the many creative artists in Japan who keep entertaining and fascinating us with their unique visions. I hope you all will have a wonderful vacation and a Happy New Year. See you in 2006! (Jesus, can I get any more sentimental? I think not!)

P. S. We’re still looking for J-E translation checkers. If you’re interested to help, please contact us!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 25th, 2005 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Release(s). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.